Elevating Champions

Transformation vs Alchemisation

Oh, dear, how very pedantic of me, I smiled at myself while dissecting the lyrics of a popular song. So Michael would sing Man in the Mirror and I would shake my head, saying no, no Michael, it is the man in front of it. Then I realised I understood the process of change slightly differently to Michael and my pedantry ran deeper than semantics. The man in the mirror symbolises transformation, while attending to the man in front of the mirror is a higher/deeper octave act of alchemisation. Let me explain.

As the name suggests transFORMation necessarily pertains to, concerns and is per~form~ed in the realms of form. We can talk about transforming structures, institutions, landscapes on a physical level and forms are easily observed there. Within a human psyche however forms are intangible like thoughts, dreams and concepts. That’s where understanding takes place as it deals with meanings and the mind is swift in finding the meaning or changing it. These aspects of the mind facilitate transformation.

Transformation became popular after 1965 as those who came from the war in Vietnam couldn’t live with what they had experienced. Something had to be done, the ways in which to accept destruction and humans’ involvement in it had to be invented. Transformation seem to have been a good tactic but how successful was it? Had it truly changed anything?

In this process we make thoughts (as well as a deeper layer of forms like emotions and feelings) more pleasing to our conscience, our aesthetics, our own ideas of ourselves, more flattering for the pain avoiding ego. We shape the forms which poke or push into our sense of justice, dignity, love and compassion so that they are not so sharp, we justify their existence within us and those who disposed these forms in us because they were too uncomfortable for them to bear. We excuse family members, teachers, society, governments, authority figures all the time. We take the forms in from all around us, identify with them and believe they are us. Then the agendas of others can be easily acted out through us. And when we realise we try to transform. So we shift the forms around, like furniture in the house, curious why the shifting doesn’t prevent the walls from rotting.

Transformation never truly changes us or our reality, it can change a perspective and our attitude towards the experience but it remains at the level of mental and emotional forms, continually adding to the confusion of the collective mental level. It does not affect the structure of the Universe. In the West transformation lends itself very well to all kinds of spiritual entertainment as well as drama and psychotherapies which keep the clients enslaved and therapists cashing in.

The ‘spiritual’ purpose of transformation however is to loosen the forms and resistance enough so that we can dive deep into the belly of creation (our central sun, the solar plexus). Not a lot of people get there. From my observation majority of people involved in transformation either on individual or national level rarely go beyond it. It is because this process, in comparison to alchemisation, is fairly easy. It is easy to stay there, while the reason explains itself, time and again, pretending to be something else, according to mood, principles or morality.

Soul alchemy takes the form and drives it deep into itself to suck out the essence of it. If you imagine a cell’s membrane which is the form, and the cell’s nucleus which is the essence, the Soul, thanks and through its vibration peels the membrane off the cell to integrate the essence of the experience which is locked in the forms (memory, thoughts, feelings). Now some forms are empty, they don’t carry any essence. They are tricksters, fake, dummies, illusions. These forms pose the greatest challenge and ‘danger’ for the ego mind ~ because once the empty form floats to our awareness (after being alchemised and disposed of) we necessarily become aware of aspects within us which let us believe those forms. Only after alchemisation, both ‘potent’ and empty forms are dissolved and utilised through our awareness. These forms no longer need to be present in our lives to teach us anything, no practise is needed to invoke alchemisation, only deep and unconditional Presence.

I sometimes asked myself why, if transformation is to lead us deeper, so many never move into alchemisation? And received a humbling response: because it requires a lot of inner stamina to recognise, hold and walk in truth. In alchemisation, as in love, nothing is hidden, everything becomes transparent, all is being presented on a platinum, shiny plate for us to see. Many have a chance to see but they quickly turn away or close their eyes. It takes guts (indeed, the solar plexus) to integrate what is offered or presented.

Then, alchemisation will never be as popular and ‘loved’ as transformation. It is because it is not glamorous, it always happens behind closed doors, never in public, it cannot be ‘celebritised’, put on a pedestal and applauded, it cannot be harvested for money, and yet only through this process are we able to affect the hologram, to influence universal structure. The beauty and cunning of it is that it can only happen within Love. Both processes require an open heart to be ‘allowed’ but while transformation is one foot in the heart / one foot in the mind, alchemisation is both feet in the soul~heart. Only in stability of our Presence will we be able to alchemise within and for ourselves without needing mirrors or others to reflect back at us what we are/feel.

Some of us already come to this Earth with the soul~spirit vibration and we transmute and alchemise almost as a default, without realising. We assist those around us without them realising. It takes a lot of humility to be aware of this process and let ourselves alchemise in another’s Presence and a lot of strength to be Present for another. It takes unconditional trust, clarity and commitment. And that’s where true intimacy is born between people as friends, lovers, founders, members of organisations and institutions. On a global level as we see it today, it is dangerous, because people who are intimate never require forms to define them or walls of institutions to be of service.